The Unforgiven
by Special Patrol Groupie
Summary: Vyvyan Basterd, now in his mid-40s and an established trauma surgeon in the United States, is forced to confront his past. **COMPLETED** Subject to revision.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters or the scenario, and I'm not making a bloody penny off this.

* * *

I.

The soundtrack of his working life: The beeping of the heart monitor, the sighing of the respirator, the clinking of surgical instruments, the sound of his own voice issuing demands or commenting on the situation, other voices supplying information. It was almost peaceful sometimes, at least superficially.

The purely rational part of his brain was convinced this surgery was pointless. The patient, an eight-year-old girl, was bleeding internally, extensively; her skull fracture was terrifying; her brain was certainly damaged; one lung was punctured; and she was malnourished and weakened by prior abuse. The other part wanted to try anyway. This might be one of those times when the patient beat the odds, or the surgeon misjudged the odds in the first place.

_But what kind of life would she have if she does survive?_ asked that rational part of his mind.

_What kind of life have you had?_ the other part replied. _She deserves a chance._

_I wasn't hurt this badly._

_I'm trying anyway._

_Of course. Hippocratic Oath and all that. No point telling you not to get your hopes up – you do anyway._

"Scalpel."

He always felt like a fucking cliché when he asked for a scalpel. He used it quickly.

"Scissors."

He caught the change in the heart monitor's beeping before the anesthesiologist spoke up.

"Blood pressure 70 over 50, still dropping, heart rate 95." She paused. "66 over 48 ... 63 over 42 -- Vyv, hurry."

"Sutures. I'm hurrying as fast as I fucking can," he said in a controlled tone. "Give her a unit of blood."

"Her parents have religious objections."

"Well, that bloody figures," Vyvyan muttered, sewing rapidly. Once in a similar situation he had asked the parents about that part of the Bible where it says "You shall live by my commandments and not die by them," and saved their three-year-old boy as a result, but got a reprimand for not respecting the parents' religious preferences.

"Besides, she's O negative," the anesthesiologist said. "And we're out of that."

"Sponge. How's her pressure now?"

"65 over 48 and rising," the anesthesiologist said as he blotted inside the wound. No new blood appeared. "68 over 50 ... 74 over 54 ... I think you got it all."

There was a chance for her, then – at least there was until he saw the red welling up slightly.

"She's bleeding again. Suction!" He took the tube from the nurse and began clearing out the wound so he could see where it was coming from. "Ah, there you are, you little wanker, thought you could hide from me – CHRIST!"

A gout of blood shot up from the wound and hit him in the face. Blindly he grouped inside for the artery that he instinctively knew was most likely to be causing the bleeding. But even as he pinched it off, the heart monitor started jeering at him.

"Defibrillator!" He seized the paddles and rubbed a small amount of jelly between them as it charged up. "And ... clear!"

The tone did not change. He shocked her twice more, upping the voltage each time.

"Vyv, I think she's gone," the anesthesiologist said.

"Not bloody yet! I haven't gone to maximum!"

"Vyv, you said it yourself – she's lost too much blood to save. And she's brain dead, too."

He knew she was right. No way to save her, and nothing left to save. He set the paddles back on the defibrillator and glanced over at the clock. The words didn't want to come; they never did. But they had to be said – the first of many he had to say whenever he failed.

"Time of death ... twenty-three eighteen."

He pulled down on his mask, peeled off his gloves, threw them on the floor and left the OR. In the changing room, he took a corner a little too sharply and banged his shoulder hard against a locker.

"Aw, _fuck_!" he shouted, leaning against the locker. The physical pain loosened his grip on the other pain he was feeling. At last, he had found the words. He covered his face with his hands and swore quietly. "Why couldn't you have let me have this one, you fucking prick? You bastard. I hate you sometimes. What the fucking hell did she ever do to you? I know what I did to deserve this, but why her?" He threw his head back and shouted at the ceiling. "WHY, GOD? WHY?"

There was never an answer, but the immediate rage cooled. He smiled – a feral, predatory smile. This time, there _was_ someone else to hold responsible.

He burst into the conference room, which had been allocated to the girl's parents when their daughter went into that long and fruitless surgery. The room, decorated with oak furniture and high-backed black leather chairs, was used most often for doctors' meetings. The two occupants jumped. They both had that strange mixture of youthful bodies and aged, toothless faces that belied long-term meth habits The woman probably couldn't qualify as a blood donor if she wanted to on the basis of weight alone. The man was still a normal weight, but his face looked like he had picked a dozen zits.

"I'm sorry," Vyvyan said. "I did everything I could, but her injuries, her blood loss ..." he bit off the rest of the rant that was building up in him. "She didn't make it."

"God's will," the mother said brokenly, fractionally lowering the charges she faced in Judge Vyvyan's court. "I'm sure you did everything you could, doctor."

The father smirked, convicting himself.

"I would like to think I did, ma'am ... but it looked like someone else did everything they could to her, too."

Even before Vyvyan shot a glare at the girl's father, he was squirming. "What does that mean?"

Vyvyan put both hands on the table and leaned across it. "She didn't crack her head on the pavement. The fracture was shaped wrong for that. And anyway, that doesn't explain the broken ribs, contusions, recent burns, and internal bleeding – that's what really killed her, the internal bleeding."

"Well," the mother intervened nervously, "we didn't _see_ her fall, she always was very clumsy –"

"Oh, I bet she was clumsy!" Vyvyan snarled. "Terribly clumsy! She'd just happen to be in the way of someone's fist when it was swinging, didn't she?"

The girl's father stood up. He must have been half a foot taller and three stone heavier than Vyvyan. In terms of courage, though, the man was a dwarf, and Vyvyan knew it.

"Did she run into doorknobs a lot? Fall on knives and into fireplaces?" He started slowly around the table, and the man retreated. "Did she put cigarettes out on herself, tip boiling water on herself, fall into the bath and almost drown herself? And did she just _happen_ to get her head in the way of a baseball bat when it was swinging?"

The man stumbled over a chair.

"This wasn't an accident; someone beat her. Didn't they?"

"Are you trying to say _he_ did it?" the mother asked.

"That's for the police to decide. But I'll tell you something –" Vyvyan started around the table again, and the man continued to keep it between them "—I know who had custody. I know the CPS were called on the girl's parents just two weeks ago for something like the eighth time." Vyvyan watched the man's face flush dark red. "I think I know the chickenshit weasel who did it –" his voice dropped an octave "--and I hope he burns in hell."

Vyvyan turned to go, but the woman's scream put him on the defensive just in time – the father had leaped the table. Vyvyan ducked a punch without even seeing it, drove an elbow into the man's gut, whirled around, caught him across the jaw with his right fist, jumped on his supine body and began grinding his face into the carpet. But the man bucked Vyvyan off, knocking his head into the table ...

"... and you struck Mr. Macintosh in the jaw and called Mrs. Macintosh a two-bit whore—"

"Two-_pence_ whore," Vyvyan interrupted calmly.

He was facing his boss, the chief of medicine. She was a tiny woman about 60 years old, with gray hair all in place and a white coat that seemed crisper and whiter than anyone else's. She always made Vyvyan feel like a punk, even when he was freshly showered and wearing khakhis, a silk tie and a starched white shirt under his starched white lab coat. He touched the stitches on his forehead and reminded himself not to scratch.

"Vyvyan, I might have been able to write this off as frustration and self-defense had this been the first or even second time it's happened, but we've been getting a number of complaints about you lately, and they're getting worse. And it's not just from the patients' families. Some of the newer members of the staff are starting to say they feel threatened by you."

Vyvyan rolled his eyes.

"Or that you're contemptuous of them."

"So you waited until now to throw this into my face."

"I was trying to figure out the validity of these concerns before I presented them to you, knowing that with your acute and detail-oriented mind you would pick through my arguments with an electron microscope. I mean, look at this one --" she picked up a piece of paper -- "'I must protest the surgeon's constant reference to himself as "Doctor Bastard." I—'"

"That's my bloody name!" Vyvyan shouted.

"Of course, Vyv."

"Am I not supposed to use my own bloody name because it has a few unfortunate connotations? What am I supposed to say? 'Hello! My name is Doctor Saccharine Sweet Cheeks'?"

"Vyvyan—"

"Or maybe 'I'm Doctor My-Parents-Were-Unmarried-And-Mum-Never-Was-Sure-Who-My-Dad-Was'!"

"Vyv, that's what I was trying to illustrate. I haven't had time to look over all these complaints and see which ones are valid and which aren't." Vyvyan tried to speak, but she kept going. "Vyvyan, you're under a lot of stress these days, with your mother's illness and your family problems and -- and I should have suggested a leave before it got out of hand – but I'm going to have to put you on leave immediately for the altercation with Mr. Macintosh."

She paused. "And we are going to have to begin termination procedures."


	2. Chapter 2

II.

He was walking through town late one night on his way home from a shift at the hospital, slouching, hands jammed deep into his pockets. Doc Marten's hung heavy on his feet; jeans rolled up over the top of the boots; studded bracelets around his wrists; a studded belt around his waist; chain hitting his back lightly between his shoulder blades with every step; a heavier chain around his neck secured with a padlock. The scowl he wore to finish it off was unnecessary in terms of scaring people, but he knew that smiling would ruin the effect entirely.

For some reason, he turned and went down a dark alley. It had been a while since he had done so – people would warn him that he would get jumped, but he used to hope to get jumped. Fighting off a surprise attack could be exhilarating.

Some small movement caught his eye, and he peered in among a group of Dumpsters gathered near the back door of a neighborhood espresso bar. He thought he saw a small, frightened face in the shadows, but it hid.

"Hello?" he called softly. "What are you doing there?" He was trying to pitch his voice as gently as possible. "Are you lost?"

The face reappeared, terrified.

"Is someone after you?"

"I'm in trouble," the child whispered.

"With who?"

Heavy breathing and footsteps answered that question. The silhouetted man was big and drunk, but not drunk enough – he was still coordinated enough to wield a baseball bat, or was it just a big stick? Or a cricket bat? It seemed to keep changing in the dim light.

"Where are you, you little bitch?" the man growled – Vyvyan recognized the voice of Mr. Macintosh, the supposed father of the little girl he couldn't save. Was that voice in the shadows the little girl's twin, then?

The girl whimpered, and Macintosh whirled toward her. In the dark it was hard to tell what was going on, until the girl ran screaming into the glow of a porch light; the father was chasing – and Vyvyan's boots were too heavy to let him run. He could only watch as the girl tripped over something and the man caught her.

Vyvyan was closer somehow, but still paralyzed. The man swung the bat over and over, but the girl dodged, rolling; then she rolled too far to one side and ended up pinned between a wall and her father; and he raised the bat and brought it down straight toward her head –

And then they were gone, it was cool daylight and he was sitting in the driver's seat of his old Ford Anglia, the one he'd sold when he decided to emigrate. He was still in an alley, just that this was England now. He reached for the keys in the ignition, but didn't start the car; something told him he had to wait for the others ...

Suddenly they were pounding around the corner, looking just as they had in college: Mike, carrying a huge bag, followed by Rick and Neil, all three carrying water pistols and looking completely insane with glee.

"We did it! We did it! We fucking did it!" they shouted.

Vyvyan started the engine as Mike climbed inside. "Get in the car! Get in the fucking car!" he shouted at Rick and Neil, who seemed more interested in celebrating than escaping. But finally Neil folded himself into the back seat and Rick climbed in the front. Vyvyan revved the engine, stomped on the clutch and shifted straight into third, and the Anglia leapt forward, right into a light pole he hadn't noticed.

"What have I done?" Vyvyan screamed. "My car! My beautiful, beautiful car!" He put his head on the steering wheel and sobbed brokenly. He was dimly aware of Mike trying to simultaneously console him and get him to put aside his grief, Neil patting his shoulder and Rick swatting him ineffectually – and then sirens rose in the distance.

"The pigs! This is it!" Rick exclaimed. He opened the door. "I will see you later!"

Vyvyan honestly did not care. In fact, he wanted to tell Mike and Neil to run for it, too. His car was dead, SPG was dead; he had probably ruined his academic career with this stupid stunt ...

A honk caught their attention – Rick had hijacked a double-decker bus. Who knew the girly wimp was that gutsy? Yet as he thought that, Vyvyan knew that it was Rick who had actually pulled off the robbery somehow – he'd find out the rest later.

Then they were on a highway somewhere, and Vyvyan was behind the wheel. The way he steered seemed to have nothing to do with the way the bus moved. The lads were singing several rows back; he tried to sing along, but it was taking everything he had to keep the bus on the road, and his glasses kept falling off his face (glasses? He didn't wear glasses when he was in college). Then Rick went on a rant about how they were going to be living it up with booze and chicks and all that -- a shot ricocheted off the windshield – and just like that he was driving through a mass of police cars, Hummers and tanks; above, helicopter gunships fired at him; higher still, bombers dropped their payloads all around. They obviously couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, but they seemed to have infinite ammo, and sooner or later ...

"Look out! CLIFF!" Rick shouted.

Vyvyan stomped on the brakes, which seemed to have worn through their shoes to the drums. The plunge seemed about 10,000 feet straight down, with the guys screaming and blaming each other and Vyvyan and Thatcher and bad karma and negative-vibe merchants and whoever else they could think of. A dwarf devil was laughing, and SPG was laughing, and that psychotic woman who spent the night with Rick once, and their landlord Jerzy and all his insane family, and Rick's sociology teacher and Neil's friend Neil and Bambi and the Footlights College team from University Challenge and Vyv's punk mates and his mum and Neil's parents all laughing, and flames and filthy laundry and broken crockery and blow-up dolls came up from the bottom of the abyss.

"I'm starting with you, Vyvyan Basterd!" the dwarf devil taunted him. "You were always mine! Mine!"

The bus finally reached bottom, throwing Vyvyan toward the windshield –

And the devil and the bus and everything else vanished into total blackness. There was only his heavy breathing and thumping heart to testify to the terror of a moment ago. Was he alive? Was he dead? Where was he?

Gradually he became aware that he was flat on his back in his bed, in his apartment, that it was about 10 in the morning and that he was terribly hung over. He knew the medical reason why he still couldn't move, but it didn't help him break the immobilizing spell of his unconscious fears – not yet. It would take time; it would wear off as the dream receded like high tide turning.

It was a familiar anxiety dream; he first had it when he and his flatmates from Scumbag College got thrown out of their home on a pretense their landlord invented. They made a complaint to the authorities and were soon allowed to move back in, but the time they'd spent homeless had been some of the worst in Vyvyan's life. Maybe the worst, because while the discomfort and danger weren't as great as some things situations he'd been in, there was the distinct possibility of losing everything.

Not that he had that much. But he did have the car, he had his hamster, and he had the dreams that he was slowly, painfully forging into reality.

The car was paid for, but could be sold. It was a symbol of the past, of the doctor who had taken an interest in him when he was laid up in hospital with a badly broken leg. That doctor paid for his tuition at a college prep school when he passed all but one of his O-levels but didn't qualify for a scholarship because it had crossed nobody's mind to apply for them. What could a fatherless troublemaker like Vyvyan ever hope to accomplish? The doctor, unencumbered by past impressions, saw not the boy from the slums always getting into fights and breaking things, but the boy with an insatiable curiosity and an almost untapped intellect. He brought Vyvyan books to read, explained the surgical procedures he had done to put Vyvyan's leg back together, and quietly became the father figure Vyvyan needed – strict, authoritative, but loving and encouraging. He wrote frequently to Vyvyan, praised his good grades, chided him gently for the bad ones, came out for parents' days, and showed up at random to take him shopping for necessities and to have a cream tea or some other treat. The last time he saw the doc was on prize day where Vyvyan won awards for maths, chemistry and biology, and when they stood for pictures afterward the doc put his arm around Vyvyan's shoulders – and for the first time in his life, Vyvyan welcomed the touch.

The doc had a heart attack and died a few days later, leaving Vyvyan enough money to finish prep school and buy a car and also leaving him with a broken heart. He took the news so badly he had to be put in the infirmary and sedated, and for weeks afterward he barely spoke or looked at anything around him; his eyes seemed to gaze into a distance at things he could never have now. Then he dreamed the doctor was sitting by his bedside in the dorms, telling him to snap out of it, get a backbone and keep on – because if he didn't, then everyone would shake their heads and say that doc was a fool trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. ...

The hamster nobody would probably want, but he could starve to death, or run away. It bit him sometimes, but it was warm and fuzzy and cute, and there were times Vyvyan needed warm, fuzzy cuteness.

The dreams were the most fragile. If he lost his grant, if he failed exams, if his tutor's doubts about Vyvyan's psychological suitability for a career in medicine got the best of him ...

Vyvyan turned his head, and the grip of the nightmare eased somewhat. His breath came easier. The skin around his eyes felt tight from tears that had dried there. He sat up to blow his nose – his head pounded and his stomach churned with reminders of all the alcohol he'd consumed since coming home yesterday morning after being told he was most likely going to get fired. He lurched to his feet and staggered into the bathroom, opened the toilet lid and seat, the muscles of his alimentary canal already going into spasm.

When he was done vomiting, he flushed the toilet and moved to the sink, gargling and brushing his teeth and tongue and gargling again until he tasted of mint-flavored bile. He filled a glass with tap water and rinsed and rinsed until he tasted of mint-and-bile-flavored chlorine and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

"Don't you look good, you bastard," he mumbled. His hair was too short to be a mess, but his eyes were bloodshot, his jaw covered with ginger-gray stubble and his skin dry and flaking. He flipped himself off American style, middle finger extended, and decided to make himself a cup of tea and try to read the morning papers.

"Holy shit," he muttered, seeing the debris from yesterday's binge on his rolltop desk. One bottle of vodka, empty; another bottle, about a third empty; his laptop computer still open. He jostled the mouse, and the computer woke up to a blog post he didn't remember writing – the words FCUK EVREYTIHGN jumped out at him. Thank God for small mercies -- he hadn't actually posted it.

Next to his computer, his BlackBerry insisted someone in London had called six times between 2 and 2:30 a.m., but only left a message with the last call. He didn't recognize that number, but after figuring the time difference in his head he figured he could call them back without waking them up – and then he called his voice mail.

"Vyvyan, it's your mum," said the recording. She sounded as brisk and faux-loving as ever. "It's 10 a.m. here in London, so it's what, 6 p.m. there? Why aren't you answering the phone? Honestly, Vyvyan! So irresponsible! Anyway, I'm in the hospital again, not that you care ..."


	3. Chapter 3

He felt like shit. Cold shit. Cold, moldy shit. On cold, moldy toast. Covered with piss and topped with bogeys. And that was an improvement. Never, ever fly hung over, he told himself. He usually didn't get airsick, but this time he went through three barf bags before another passenger handed him some Dramamine.

After going through immigration and customs and reclaiming his bags, he walked to the public part of the terminal and stood, looking around, trying to get his bearings. It seemed as though everyone was meeting a loved one – they were hugging, squeezing, kissing, laughing, crying happily – and he was the only person in the entire terminal who wasn't being met. He should have just hired a limo; at least someone would have been standing there with his name printed in large block letters on a card. Like that fortysomething guy there in the black pea coat and the jeans, with the collar-length, shaggy graying hair and the placard reading

THE APTLY NAMED

DR. VYVYAN BASTERD

Bloody hell! Vyvyan thought. What's going on? Wait, that bloke looks familiar somehow ... he's spotted me. Or has he? I can't tell what he's looking at -- he's got one eye looking at me and the other wandering off to his right – ah, mystery solved.

He trudged over to the man. "Hello," Vyvyan said cautiously, in case there was a mistake.

"Hello ... are you Dr. Basterd?"

No mistaking that voice, refined upper class trying to be working class. Vyvyan felt one corner of his mouth quirking up.

"Yes." He paused, but the temptation was too strong. "Are you ... still a virgin?"

The man threw the sign down. "I am _not_ a virgin!"

"VIRGIN! VIRGIN! VIRGIN!" Vyvyan shouted – then they were hugging each other and pounding each other's backs and laughing. Rick drew away first and looked Vyvyan up and down, still laughing.

"Don't we look posh! Blummin' good job I brought the sign!" He released Vyvyan and picked up the cardboard. "God, I never would have spotted you, and you would have walked right past me and I would have gotten mad and stormed off, and that would have been the end of it."

"I probably should have walked past you anyway, you twat," Vyvyan teased. "Now I have to put up with you. Ugh! Wasn't sharing a house with you for three years enough?"

"I probably shouldn't have come to get you, farty-breath," Rick returned in the same vein, turning to go to the car park and taking Vyv's big bag without being asked. "I should have never accepted your friends request on Facebook. I should have just hit that big IGNORE button, but nooo, I wanted to see which prison you were locked up in! Was I shocked to see you have an M.D. now! I thought you said you didn't need one of those."

"You do in America," Vyvyan said. "I worked for NHS for a while, got sick of it, managed to get myself into a medical school in the states, married an American girl and, well, you know how it is."

"I saw the photos," Rick said. "Our loss, America's gain. Which state?"

"California. I'm working at what they call a Level I trauma center, where they bring the worst cases from an area bigger than all Britain. I also teach and do some research, publish a few papers every year in the field. Keeps me off the street, anyway."

"Don't you like it?"

"The job or the country?"

"Well, both."

"Love both. Last eight years of the country were rough, politically – you thought you hated Thatcher! At least she was fairly competent, intelligent and articulate! -- but we've got a new president who is actually trying to keep his promises. We'll see how that turns out."

"Thought about going over to the States myself – had an offer to teach at a university in, what's it called, R. Kansas –"

"Arkansas, Rick."

"R. Can Saw, yes – why is it R. Can Saw but not Can Saw?"

"I don't know, why do we spell it 'Edin-burg' but pronounce it 'Edin-Borough'?"

"That's the Scots. Anyway, University of Little Rock, in the middle of Clinton country, right after he got elected – they wanted me for an adjunct professorship, but I had to turn it down. Mum and Dad are doing poorly and they've only got me to depend on, so I really shouldn't stray too far. I haven't been out of the UK – hell, I haven't even been out of Greater London for three years. Starting to get cabin fever."

Rick's car was an older black Jaguar that probably had belonged to his parents. He had some trouble lifting Vyv's big suitcase to the trunk, so Vyv helped him. He tossed the carry-on bag in after it, then waited until Rick unlocked the passenger-side door.

"I guess this is where we accuse each other of selling out," Rick said, whipping off his pea coat and sliding behind the wheel. Vyvyan noticed Rick had put on weight. But then again, Rick could have added three stone to his college weight without raising a physician's eyebrows, and he was nowhere near that point.

"We sold out when we took our A levels," Vyvyan said, "if not when we took our O levels. No, that's not right, either. Let's face it, we were always part of the system – just a big enough system to allow kids who need it to blow off steam by letting them think they're all clever and rebellious, and a wise enough one not to hold it against them when they decide to stop rebelling."

Rick gave him a puzzled look. "And when did you turn into a philosopher?"

"Fighting death all day long will do that to you," Vyv replied.

Rick sighed, threading his way through the parking garage. "Well, I think you're right about the system. My parents tried to tell me that once, but I had no way of understanding it. You just think it's us vs. them, and then one day there's a new 'us' and we are part of 'them.'"

Rick pulled onto the M4 and picked up speed. Neither one of them said anything until they turned north, trading freeway for surface streets. The architecture, the intersections at any angle except 90 degrees, the ... the London-ness of the city reached out to him – but Vyvyan eyed it warily. This was the city that raised him up, but only so far. NHS surgeon, sure. Private practitioner? Never. This was where his future father-in-law had recruited him, saying, "Dr. Basterd, I watched you in surgery; you are a gifted surgeon, but you are wasting your talents here. Why? Because this society is too class-ridden to accept a physician of your socio-economic background into the elite of the profession, which is where I think you belong. Accept this fellowship I'm offering you, and unless I've grossly misjudged you, when you're done you'll be able to write your own ticket in the United States."

"Everything all right?" Rick asked. "I mean, beyond the obvious."

"Oh, just the usual problems," Vyvyan lied. Now was not the time to go into his probable job loss and impending divorce. "Just seems like everything happens at once. You ever hear from Mike or Neil?"

"Oh, on occasion. They're all right. Mike's some mucky-muck in a mobile phone company, and Neil's working for Amnesty International. I think he's in Israel monitoring the Gaza or something like that."

"Neil in the Gaza?" Vyvyan had to laugh. "Either he's gotten a lot braver or he's spending all his time in a bomb shelter shuddering."

"He's been to Afghanistan and Rwanda and the Sudan as well – he's getting to be quite the expert on the Muslim world. Occasionally gets quoted in the Guardian and the Times on the subject of human rights violations there."

"Whoda thought," Vyvyan said. "We were all supposed to be failures, you know?"

"Yes," Rick said flatly.

Vyvyan looked out the window, guessing he wasn't the only one with problems he didn't want to discuss. "Where are we going, anyway?" he asked.

"My house," Rick said, rounding a corner. "I live near the hospital. If you don't like it at my place, you can at least stay till you find a good hotel. And here we are."

Rick's house was a maisonette, three stories high, and seemed to be built with the same blueprint as the house they'd had when they were in college. The inside, however, looked nothing like those kinds of houses did in the '80s.

"Gentrification," Rick said with an embarrassed laugh. The stairs were solid oak and elaborately carved and carpeted; the kitchen was full of the most advanced appliances; the drawing room was stark Italian furniture, all chrome legs and black leather and angles. Vyvyan thought about his house – not the apartment where he was staying until Chel made up her mind about their marriage, but the home they had built from the ground up in the suburbs, almost the exurbs, not far from the airport where Vyv kept his Beechcraft, or the country club where he tried to play golf and tennis and was coaching a cricket team, or the sports complex where he was in a co-ed softball league -- a good shortstop and pitcher but not so good a batter, and a short walk from the schools where his kids played all the usual sports American kids played – football, baseball or softball, basketball, volleyball and track. Their awards for sports and academics lined the walls of that house, looking down on the overstuffed leather furniture and the small menagerie that roamed freely through all the rooms. Vyvyan could close his eyes and see the back yard, with the pool sparkling and the green grass and palm trees and flowers, and the outdoor kitchen where he grilled just about everything in sight that could be eaten. Squealing children, splashing water, adults discussing and debating the issues of the day, dogs barking, music playing, steaks sizzling – damn, he had no idea how good he'd had it.

"Now, the guest room is over here, used to be the den in this house, right this way –"

He stepped inside but didn't turn on the light switch. Vyvyan followed –

The light flicked on.

"That was a complete lie I told about Neil being in Israel at the moment," Rick said.


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

Dawn was creeping up over London, and they were all still awake in Rick's Italian drawing room, working on their fifth bottle of Dom Perignon and a plate of nibblers Rick had heated up.

"I had to make it look posh!" Rick insisted, waving his hand at the living room. "When I first looked at it, I thought that any minute now Neil was going to come out of the kitchen claiming to have six pairs of hands, or Vyvyan was going to come crashing through the walls –"

"I never crashed through the walls."

"Yes you did," the others chorused.

"OK, I did. ONCE. And I had most of a bottle of vodka first."

"And you souped up the vacuum cleaner and it tore the nap right off the carpet, and I had to order you not to use it," Mike said.

"And you wired the front doorbell to a bomb," Rick said, "and the postman came to deliver a package and the front door exploded –"

"It was a cherry bomb!"

"And do you remember what you said when we called you on it?" Rick continued, sucking on a cigarette. "'Honestly! Whenever anything explodes around here it's always "Blame Vyvyan!"'"

"Ga, you guys make me sound like a hooligan."

"You _were_ a hooligan," Neil said. "You had a cricket bat you used more often to hit me and Rick than you did to play cricket."

"I couldn't use it to play cricket -- it was rubber! I'm surprised you can even remember, Neil, with all those drugs you were doing."

"Me too," Neil grinned.

"Anyway, I'd rather have done what I did than done what Rick did stone-cold sober at that party we threw, right after I souped up the vacuum," Vyvyan recalled. "Remember that? He snatched Sue's purse and dug a tampon out of it – " he started laughing – "and he had no idea what it was – 'a telescope with a mouse!'"

Even Rick was laughing.

"And, and, and he dunks it in Rhiannon's drink and then he realizes what it was and all of a sudden he's running off to the bathroom!"

"Well, at least I wasn't doing those push-ups you were doing," Rick retorted. "You looked like you were fucking a blow-up doll!"

Vyvyan looked sharply at Rick. "Where did you learn that word?"

"What word, 'fuck'?"

"Yeah."

"Probably from you."

"Yeah, it would figure you didn't know that word until you were in college."

"Did you guys, ever, you know, grow up?" Mike asked – but he was grinning. "I mean, it's as though you picked up right where you left off last time we all saw each other. I almost expect Vyvyan to start chasing Rick up the stairs yelling 'Virgin! Virgin!'"

"Actually, we did that at the airport," Rick admitted. Vyvyan couldn't speak; he was lying back in his chair shaking with laughter, so Rick described their reunion with relish.

"I can't believe how much time we wasted obsessing about each other's sex lives, who's a virgin and who isn't," Vyvyan said when he finally got control of himself. "I hope my kids aren't that dumb, but they probably are."

"Yeah, so are mine," Neil said.

"And mine," Mike said. "It's genetic, I'm sure." He took out his wallet and removed the plastic photo album. "The boy is Hubert and the girl is Jessica."

Neil pulled his out, too. "The girls are Alicia and Emma, and the twin boys are Brian and Kevin."

Vyv gave in and took his album out. "Brittani and Joshua, who of course are the most handsome, intelligent and best-behaved kids in all America, if not the English-speaking world."

"I'll give you America, but not the whole English-speaking world," Mike said, "because obviously that honor belongs to _my_ kids. They take after their mother, of course."

"I rather fancy my own kids as the most beautiful in the world," Neil said, "but what kind of a father would I be if I didn't?"

"So where's your show-off album?" Vyvyan asked before realizing that Rick looked like he wished he were somewhere else.

"Well, my little Sally is plenty cute and extremely intelligent, well-behaved and obedient," Rick said with heavy irony, reaching for his wallet, "so much so that she won twenty-two Best in Shows over her career before I retired her." He showed them a lovely cocker spaniel sitting next to a big silver bowl, tongue out.

"She looks like you, Rick," Vyvyan said, "especially the tongue."

Rick tried to laugh, but gave up. "Nikki and I can't have children; we tried to adopt, but it was futile."

"Nikki?"

"My partner – teaches physics. Out of town at a conference."

"Ah."

The room lit up as the sun peeked above the houses on the other side of the street.

"Blimey! Would you look at that," Mike said. "We've been up all night."

"I'd love to," Vyvyan said, covering his eyes with his hands, "but I can't see the sun, er, for the sun."

"Well!" Rick stood up and clapped his hands. "Do you lads want breakfast, or ... ?"

They migrated to the kitchen. "Now don't worry, I haven't poisoned anyone, yet, and I cook breakfast every morning for Nikki."

They heard the front door open, slam shut, and heavy footsteps in the hall. A tall ginger-haired man with the physique of a body-builder entered the room.

"Hello, Ricky," he said.

"Nicky, darling! I didn't expect you back so soon."

"And here I thought you'd finally grown up, that you were a mature adult human being, that there was something more to you besides mindless violence and insensitivity –"

"Look, Rick, it's not _that_ – I just didn't, you know, expect ..."

Vyvyan was starving; he thought about his cooked breakfast cooling on the table, but he couldn't just turn around and eat it while Rick was fuming out here in the back yard. Rick was as angry as Vyvyan had ever seen him and, well, Vyvyan felt pretty stupid.

"Rick, I thought Nicky was, you know, N-I-K-K-I! And trying to figure out what kind of girl you'd go for, all dainty and petite and trendy, and then ... well, you know, the joke was on me, I was laughing at myself!"

"You spit tea all over Nicky."

"I apologized, didn't I?" Vyvyan shook his head. "Look, I really am sorry, but you know, I wasn't very well brought up ..."

"You can say that again."

"I wasn't very well brought up."

Rick gave him a look of disgust. Not knowing what to do, Vyvyan leaned forward and stuck his chin out.

"Go on, hit me."

"What?"

"Go on, hit me right there." Vyvyan tapped his chin. "You know you want to. I won't even dodge."

"Forget it," Rick snarled, stomping away. "Just forget it."

Vyvyan followed, still tapping his chin. "Right there. Don't forget to follow through."

"Forget it!" Rick shouted. "Just, just go inside. You're just making it worse."

Vyvyan went inside. His eggs, sausage and toast were cold, but he ate them. As he finished, Rick came in, slamming the door behind him.

"I suppose I should get a hotel room, then," Vyvyan said.

"No, don't bother."

"Look, Rick, he said he was sorry, it was an accident," Nick, wearing fresh clothes, put in. "And you hadn't told him yet, and you told me you put in a lot of time trying to make sure everyone thought of you as straight to the point of humping everything female you could find –"

"I know, I know! It's just – him! I don't know why I invited him here, he made me miserable in college, he was physically abusive, probably clinically insane."

"Neurotic, yes, but not psychotic," Vyvyan interjected. He scowled – _abusive_? Him?

"And drunk," Nick said. "You all are. Your other two friends were a little unsteady on their feet when I saw them onto the train."

"Am I drunk?" Rick asked.

"Five bottles of champagne and you have to ask that question?" Vyvyan put in.

"Well, I didn't drink it all by myself!"

"No, but you're rotten at holding your liquor," Vyvyan retorted.

"You mean I'm not an alcoholic."

Vyvyan grabbed Rick's lapel and yanked so they were nose-to-nose. "Shut up, or –"

"Or what?"

_Abuser._

"Or I'll say 'shut up' again," Vyvyan finished lamely, letting Rick go without even giving him a shove. "Fuck it. I'm going to bed."


	5. Chapter 5

V.

"You're Dr. Basterd?" said the young woman at the nurse's station. "Miranda Balowski's son?"

"Miranda _who_?" Vyvyan exclaimed.

"Miranda Warning Balowski? I could have sworn –"

"Miranda Warning, yes, but _Balowski_? I had a landlord named Jerzy Balowski when I was in college –"

"Yes, that's her late husband's name," said the doctor.

"Oh ... we weren't in touch much over the years," Vyvyan mumbled. Jerzy Balowsky, his _stepfather_?

"Anyway, I'm Dr. Pitchfork. I understand you had some questions ... I diagnosed her last year and set up treatment, but I have to say that she isn't the most compliant patient I've ever had ..."

Vyvyan could just imagine.

"She came back three weeks ago; I operated last week" – that's what passed for "emergency" surgery here, Vyvyan thought sourly – "but most of her internal organs are involved except her heart and lungs. She's gone downhill very rapidly. My prognosis is a month at the outside. More likely two or three weeks."

Vyvyan got up quickly and went to the window. His throat constricted, his eyes watered and he fought to keep from bawling, while an uninvolved corner of his mind wondered what he was so upset about.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Basterd, I know how you must feel. I lost my mother last year. I loved her very much. Your mother is a remarkable woman, and this situation must be a great blow to you."

Vyvyan fought to keep from giving her a "you must be fucking joking" look. "May I see her now?" he asked instead, still staring out the window.

He knocked on her door and pushed it open. The room was barely larger than a cubicle, but it was private. He shut the door and stepped around the curtain. She seemed to be sleeping. She also seemed to be little more than a skeleton with pale skin topped with frizzy masses of dyed hair. Vyvyan bit hard on his lower lip. Doctors never know for certain how long someone has, but just based on the degree of emaciation he thought she'd be lucky if she lasted one week.

He found a chair in a corner and pulled it to her bedside, but it squeaked as he sat in it and she started awake – exactly what he didn't want.

"Oh, honestly, Vyvyan, did you have to wake me up?" Miranda mumbled, glaring at him.

"Sorry, Mum, it was an accident," he replied, not looking at her.

"Sure, just come in here like a herd of elephants when I'm finally getting some sleep –"

"I can leave," he said flatly.

"What kind of son would leave his mother's deathbed?"

_What kind of mother ..._

"The kind who never bothered to see his mum the whole time he's been gone, perhaps," she mused. "Mister Big Well-Known American Doctor with his big house and his plane and his overachieving kids, and he thinks his mum is too far beneath him to acknowledge. Just send her a few quid and hope she stays quiet and on her side of the Atlantic."

"And what was your excuse?" Vyvyan snapped. "You ran off with some guy from Latin America when I was ten years old and in hospital with a smashed-up leg your third husband gave me right in front of your face, and you didn't bother to send any money or ask how I was – you do that and call _me_ negligent?"

"Oh God, get over yourself, Vyvyan, honestly. You needed a little discipline. You still do."

"A little discipline back then was being paddled eight or ten times on the bottom. Breaking my leg in eight or ten places with a cricket bat, mummy dearest, was child abuse."

"Oh, you're such a drama queen, Vyvyan. Anyway, that was so long ago. You turned out all right. You don't even limp. Besides, it's nothing worse than I got from my mum and dad, and you don't hear me whining about it, now do you?"

The trouble with trying to answer that was that he cycled through so many emotions so fast, as if they were controlled by a roulette wheel, that by the time he formed the words for his first reaction, he was already onto his fifth – and it sounded like a lot of incoherent babbling to his own ears as a result. Finally the wheel slowed enough for him to get a sentence out.

"How could you ... possibly ... think that that's an appropriate response?" Subject, predicate; yes, it ws a sentence, its elements were grammatically sound, but it was a stupid question because he knew the answer.

"Oh, Vyvyan, you've been out in the sun too long; your brain's overcooked. God knows brains were never your strong suit." She grabbed for his wrist. "I know it's fashionable out there in California to convince yourself you've had this horrible childhood and – well, maybe you had it a little harder than some people ..."

"Mum, that's like saying the Jews in the concentration camps had a little less to eat than other Germans!" He sounded like he'd never been more than 20 miles from the Thames in his entire life – dunked in its chilly waters and pulled out and left standing naked in the icy winds, shivering, humiliated – but simultaneously flash-boiling.

"Now you listen to me, because I want to make sure you hear this before you die and go to Hell. You were a rotten mother, you were negligent, you were mentally and emotionally abusive, you allowed that parade of men in and out of your life to do what they liked with me – oh, Harry was bad, but if I told you what George used to do! –" she swallowed so hard that he was instantly convinced she knew – "you abandoned me, you didn't bother to ask about me for ten solid years, and within five minutes after I happen to run into you accidentally at a pub you had gotten tired of me and tried to pick up my friend--"

"Well, it's not as if you were excited to see me or anything," Miranda muttered.

"I hardly dared to be! It's not as if you were interested in me when I was a kid!" _Shut up, you wanker. _"You used to get so bored when I talked about my life, and ... and then you finally said 'Come on over and tell me what you've been doing for the last ten years,' I was so happy, just for that moment, Mum! Ah-ha, she's finally interested in something I'm doing!

"WRONG AGAIN! You wanted to go to bed with my roommate!"

She looked ... bored. Bored! He hung onto the last filament of his self-control with his fingernails.

"Oh, fuck it; might as well be talking to a brick wall. Been nice knowing you, _Mum_." He spun on his heel and marched out, keeping his head up. He passed the nurses station without looking at any of them, and when another visitor tried to follow him into the lift he stopped him with a murderous look he'd perfected at 13. All the way downstairs, all the way to the Tube station and on the short walk from the station to Rick's house he forged his fury into both weapon and armor. A weapon against whatever enemies he might encounter on the streets of London; armor against his own grief and bewilderment.

He might have told Rick what had happened, but Rick took one look at him and fled upstairs. Trust Rick to leave the minute things look a little dicey. Vyvyan threw himself onto his bed, fully clothed and stared up at the ceiling, treasuring his anger the way a miser treasures money

He was walking through town late one night, slouching, hands jammed deep into his pockets, scowling. For some reason, he turned and went down a dark alley. He stopped a moment, then continued, hoping for a fight.

Some small movement caught his eye, and he peered in among a group of Dumpsters gathered near the back door of a pub. He thought he saw a small, frightened face in the shadows, but it hid.

"Hello?" he called softly. "What are you doing there?" He was trying to pitch his voice as gently as possible. "Are you lost?"

The face reappeared, terrified. Vyvyan stepped backward – it was a boy, small, close-shaven light-colored hair, a face both defiant and scared.

"Is someone after you?"

"I'm in trouble," the child whispered hoarsely.

"With who?"

Heavy breathing and footsteps answered that question. The silhouetted man was big and drunk, but not drunk enough – he was still coordinated enough to wield a cricket bat.

"Where are yer, little bastard?" the man growled. The boy whimpered, and the whirled toward him. In the dark it was hard to tell what was going on, until the boy darted into the glow of a porch light; the man was chasing – and Vyvyan was stuck fast in a puddle of molasses. He could only watch as the boy tripped over something and the man caught him.

The man swung the bat over and over, but the boy dodged, rolling – but the man raised the bat and brought it down straight toward the boy's head –

Thunder rolled, lightning flashed. The man lost his concentration and looked round, perhaps thinking that the police were coming. The boy got up, still looking terrified. Vyvyan suddenly had a rock in his hand; he threw it at the man, who sank to the ground slowly and silently. The boy stared.

"Run!" Vyvyan shouted at him. "Run, you stupid little bugger!" Another clap of thunder –

"Vyvyan? Rick's voice said.

Vyvyan sat up, disoriented.

"Vyvyan, telephone. It's the hospital."

Vyvyan stumbled out of bed and took the call. The flat voice on the other end said that Mrs. Balowsky had just been found dead in her room. She had asked for a diet 7-up, the nurse was gone no more than five minutes, and when she came back ...

"I see," Vyvyan said, just as flatly. "Did she leave any instructions in her file?"

"Yes, she is to be taken to Burrough Brothers mortuary and cremated, no services. She said she was leaving the disposal of her ashes up to you. But I'm afraid we're going to have to insist on an autopsy, since her death was unanticipated."

"Very well, I'll contact Burrough Brothers in the morning. Thank you."

Vyvyan hung up the phone, staring blindly into a distance far beyond what could be seen.

"I'm sorry, Vyv," Rick said, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"No pity!" Vyvyan snapped, shaking it off.

"Vyv—"

"No pity, no sympathy! I don't deserve it!"

"What are you talking about?"

Vyvyan made a few attempts to speak before finally getting it out. "I killed her, Rick."

"You ... what?" Rick asked, drawing back, horrified – still thinking Vyvyan might well be capable of murder.

"I killed her, Rick. I went in, she was obviously dying, but ... I told her she was a skank and I hoped she burned in Hell, and then I just left her, and now she's ..."

"Oh!" Rick said in relief. "Vyv, she deserved to be told off, and as far as the rest of it, how would you know --"

"I knew! I'm a fucking doctor, remember? I knew when I saw her she didn't have long!" He clenched his jaw, took a deep breath and screamed.

"OH, GOD! YOU BASTARD! Why did you let me say that to her? WHY? WHY?" His knees gave out under him; he tried to brace himself against the wall, but slowly slid to the floor, sobbing, with only Rick there to comfort him.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The flat was no more than a bedsitter with a gas ring and a tiny icebox serving as a kitchen. There was a bed, an easy chair, a dining table and two chairs, a small telly, a dresser and a battered wardrobe. The walls and floor were bare. Although it was clean, it didn't look minimalist; it just looked poor.

"I was not paying to have her live in this hole," Vyvyan grumbled, dropping his load of empty boxes. His mates looked at him - skeptically, he thought. "I wasn't! I sent her 3,500 quid a month."

"Maybe she had debts," Neil said, dropping his boxes and heading back out the door.

"Or she drank it," Rick threw in carelessly, putting the cleaning supplies on the table. Vyvyan clenched his fists and teeth to keep from saying or doing something stupid. It was probably true, anyway.

Mike came in with the ice chest full of cold drinks. "This shouldn't take long. At least she wasn't a hoarder. My mother-in-law hoards stuff - I'm not fancying cleaning out her house."

Neil came back with the hoover, a mop and bucket, and more boxes. They all stood around looking at each other.

"All right," Vyvyan said. "Rick, you do the bath; Neil, you do the kitchen; Mike, you can help me clear out her wardrobe and dresser. When we finish we'll help you with the rest."

That job didn't take long at all. There was a coat in the wardrobe, along with an old vacuum, an old mop and bucket and a box full of old bills. Vyvyan helped Mike carry the wardrobe to the van they'd rented. Then they returned. Mike cleared out the lower cupboards while Vyvyan tackled the dresser.

He started with the bottom drawer - a few sweaters and shirts, none of them new or nearly new. The next had some skirts and pants. Unmentionables, then a drawer full of old correspondence, a book or two, and - strikingly - a large, shining, sterling silver box. Heavy, too. The key was in the lock, and he opened it and lifted the lid.

"Hey," he said. "You remember that time we ran into her at the K&C? I think this is the watch she took from me." He lifted the plain black timepiece. "And the ring I was wearing, too." He tired it on; it still fit. "She must have forgotten." He set the watch aside.

In a small envelope marked 12/3/65, he found a lock of bright, baby-fine ginger hair and a note: "Vyvyan's first haircut. Poor lad. How he screamed!" He vaguely remembered that - and how his mum kept telling him to just shut up. And then, after telling him how embarrassing he was over and over, she bought him ice cream - and he was so sick to his stomach from crying and being scolded that he threw it up all over her on the bus home.

Another envelope was dated 24/1/73 and held the kind of birthday card you give to a young boy. "Happy 11th birthday. I miss you dreadfully. Mum." It was the first in a large stack: 24/1/74, 24/1/75, 24/1/76 ... 24/1/86 ... all the way up to 24/1/08, his last birthday.

A larger manila envelope held scraps of paper: unsent letters. "4/7/72. Dearest darling Vyvyan, I'm not entirely sure I understand, so I won't say you will either, but I think in some ways you are better off living in a proper home. You didn't like being taken away, but if you stay you will hurt just as much, maybe worse. I don't know why I am the way I am. When I see you I get so angry. I made a terrible mistake and you came about as a result. I am reminded every time you ask me for something I can't give, but know you should have. I know this when you're away at school or playing with friends, I think I'm going to start again, be the kind of mum I wanted, but then you come in, tracking mud on the floor, demanding something to eat when we haven't got it - no, that's just being a kid, but it's more than I can take. You are an hourly reminder of my failure. I hate myself for it, so I hate you. But I love you. Oh, for pity sakes, this makes no sense. You'll be happier and I'll at least not have to worry that I have to either work nights or steal to keep you fed and sheltered." Across the front, she'd written BOLLOCKS!!!!

And: 9/2/84: Overheard some students talking about the latest cold going around the uni. They said Vyvyan , Rick, Mike and Neil all had it. I thought that I should take Vyvyan something but I only have 2.50 until next payday, so I took an empty vodka bottle from behind the bar, went shopping and headed over to at least show him that I was concerned. He could at least fill it with water, and it would be safer to have around than a pitcher. I came in and he told me to p--- off. I guess he's still mad at me for taking his ring and watch. I should have brought them back. Anyway, it was all downhill from there. We quarreled. I covered up by giving him the empty bottle as if it were a practical joke, laughing at him when he found the bottle was empty, and ran off. He said nothing, of course. I heard one of his mates say "What a horrible woman." I guess I am.

And: 8/5/86. "I overheard some of Vyvyan's friends saying that Vyvyan had passed out third in the class. I was amazed. I was also hurt he didn't tell me. What can I do? Every time we see each other we fight. And I STILL am not certain what he was studying."

And then 4/9/87: "Rick, the lad who was Vyvyan's roommate, came into the pub with some younger kids. He's a sociology instructor at SU, apparently. I asked him if he'd heard from Vyvyan lately and said, "You didn't know? He's gone to America." "Where in America?" Rick shrugged.

27/2/91: "Now I know he's in California. He sounds so much more authoritiative these days, like ... well, like a doctor, which he is now. I got a phone call from him. He's getting married. He told me he wanted me to come and that if I needed the plane fare he'd pay for it. But he sounded condescending instead of generous ... like his father. That irritated me so much I told him I didn't want his charity and hung up. What an idiot I am. But I doubt I could have gotten the time off."

18/5/92: "My daughter-in-law came by. She's a sweet child. I can't help but imagine that Vyvyan bullies her, but she laughs at the idea and says Vyvyan acts frightened of her sometimes. Maybe so."

31/1/93: I am apparently a grandmother now. Cute little ginger-haired girl.

24/8/94: I had to swallow my pride and called Vyvyan (collect) to ask for a loan so I could go to a private doctor about my back. Got his wife instead. I told her what had happened - how I lost my job after I threw my back out, and I was still in tremendous pain and NHS was doing nothing. She said she'd see what she could do

25/8/94: Vyvyan called and said I really should move to America; they had a big enough place in the country and blah blah blah. God, he sounds so self-satisfied, so complacent, so ... American! He even has a mostly-American accent now; I didn't even recognize his voice at first. I said I just needed to see a doctor, not be taken care of like a senile old granny or on-call babysitter. Guess what happened. Guess I'm not getting any money from him now.

26/8/94: Shell called and said not to worry, that there was no way he was going to let me suffer. I suspect "he" means "she" but no matter. I'll be receiving a little something in a few days.

28/8/94: That "something" turned out to be 3500 quid. A month! Plus a private insurance plan that costs I don't want to think how much. Called (collect) again to thank him, but talked to Shell. Fortunately. I probably would have told Vyvyan that I wasn't impressed with the way he was throwing money around.

1/9/94: I think, given my big mouth, I'd better sock away as much as I can, just in case I get myself disinherited.

2/6/96: Shell brought both grandkids for a visit. Joshua is just like his dad at the same age. Loves people. Loves being cuddled. I can't stand to hold him too long; he makes me want to cry.

2/6/06: Shell here again for another visit. Joshua is 10 now, same age Vyvyan was when I gave him up. I told Shell everything about Vyvyan, who his dad is, etc. Made her promise not to tell Vyvyan until I'm gone. I honestly don't want to have that argument with Vyvyan .

And, in its own envelope: "16/11/82." Across the top of it, she'd written in a far more faltering hand, "I guess this explains it best."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Her best explanation? She'd already said a lot, but it wasn't enough. This had better be good, he told himself fiercely, ripping open the sealed envelope.

_Oh god, I hate working at the Kebab & Calculator! That pub's full of snotty spoiled kids who bellow at you like you're their servant. At least some of them tip well ... I made 25 quid in tips tonight. Oh, and a ring and a watch. ... _

_Well, no, that wasn't a tip exactly. The most extraordinary thing happened tonight._

_A group of four boys, so different from each other that you wondered why they hadn't killed each other yet, came tramping in just when the band finishe their set. One of them said something that made the band mad, and they threatened to bash his face in. The boys sat near the bar and the same boy starts yelling WAITERRRRR! WAITERRRRRR! and then spotted me and said "You! Woman!" I flashed him a V._

_Then another boy stood up and came to the bar, a ginger-haired punk, and offered to treat._

"_What do you want, Rick?"_

"_Coffee for me please, Vyvyan."_

_Vyvyan? I stole a glance at the boy at the bar as he asked his other two friends what he wanted. Not many boys named Vyvyan in the world. Could it be? ... _

_He ordered some stuff, and clearly he had no idea who I was. While he was speaking I was staring at him and staring at him, and trying to determine if he was my Vyvyan, and if so, should I tip him off who I was? He was having a nice evening out with his friends; I could ruin it for him. Or it might be that he wasn't my Vyvyan after all, and I'd embarrass myself and maybe him, too._

_He finished his order. The silence lengthened into something a little awkward, and he got a puzzled expression in his eyes. _

_The last time I saw that look was about ten years ago, when I gave up my little boy. This was that little boy, all grown up now, so handsome, so confident, treating his mates at the pub._

_I've imagined seeing him at least a hundred times a day since I gave him up. It's always by accident that we meet. Neither one recognizes the other at first. Then one remembers, and the other remembers, big emotional scene follows. I'd assure him I'd never forgotten him. I'd tell him about all the birthday cards I bought but never mailed because I didn't know where to send them. He'd tell me he always remembered my birthday, too -- he should, they're the same day! I'd hear something extraordinary from him, like he really was going to uni, he really was going to do something important and exciting that made lots and lots of money, and he would take care of me in my old age, and we'd live somewhere nice and posh and he'd marry a beautiful girl and have lots of grandchildren who would love me and never cry from hunger or cold or heat ... _

_Well, I remembered first. As I expected._

_"Hello, Vyvyan!" _

_"Oh, hi, Mum," he said, like he'd seen me yesterday._

_Well, it was only a few years ago to me, but half his life. The counselors told me he would have a hard time if I ever saw him again -- unless he sought me out. I tried again._

_"Fancy seeing you here! I didn't know you were in London!"_

_He nodded. "Yeah." He seemed to not know what to say. "Uh ... how's Dad?"_

_Of all the things! "Oh, honestly, Vyvyan, I wish you wouldn't ask me that!"_

_He looked at me as if he didn't understand._

"_You know I've no idea who he is!" I blurted. Oh great, now his mates know he's not only illegitimate, but that I'm not exactly sure about his paternity – at least I wasn't sure enough to give a name when it was time to fill out his birth certificate. But I was fairly sure now. When he was younger, his face was rounder, his nose shorter; but now it was long with lots of chin, rather upper-class. And his teeth were very, very straight. That all gave it away. And it was not who I really wanted to be his father, either. Irritated, I turned away to prepare the order before I said something even dumber._

_His tosser companion, the one who yelled WAITERRRRR! at me, said, "Oh, Vyvyan, you never told us your mum was a bartender."_

_"Well, she was a shoplifter when I knew her!"_

_Now that made me mad. Yes, yes, I did shoplift, but what are you supposed to do when you've been kicked out of your house at 16, stuck with a child who needs to be fed? I didn't want to give him to some strangers, and I certainly didn't want him to starve, and I thought if I told the authorities I couldn't afford to feed him, they'd take him away. So I shoplifted -- for him, for God's sake! _

_So when I produced his order, I said, "That'll be twenty-eight pound fifty, Vyvyan." Ridiculous price for a glass of water, a bag of crisps and a Babycham, and I expected him to know it._

_He looked at me blankly, taking me at face value, and produced a note from his denim waistcoat. "I've only got a fiver!"_

_That would have been more than enough. But I wanted to get back at him. Already he'd called me a thief and provoked me into admitting I had slept around a bit. I snatched the fiver._

_"I'll have the ring and the watch." And I took them before he could protest. Yes, this was my Vyvyan: paralyzed when I did anything to him, no matter how wrong it was. I stuffed the ring and watch, still warm from his skin, down my shirt as he looked pleadingly at me. It had always given me a sort of ... oh, feeling of power, I guess, when I did things like that to him. More so now. He was tall, he was powerfully built, and probably even stronger than he looked, he could have picked me up and thrown me across the room, yet he could only stare at me. I felt bad for a moment. Oh, I thought, I'll return them later, when he's leaving. Or maybe I'll just return the watch and keep the ring, wear it on a necklace or something. _

_I picked up the tray and brought it to his table. "Well, Vyvyan," I said, all interested Mum again, "aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"_

_Well, he is better now at dealing with sudden changes in mood. He pointed out his two friends: Mike was a rather good-looking young man with dark hair; Neil was a scarecrowish hippie -- and then "That's a complete bastard I know called Rick," the lad who yelled at me like I was a scullery maid in Victorian times. _

_"Oh, he's only joking, Mrs. Vyvyan, we're terrific friends," Rick said._

_I stared at him – not the way I'd stared at Vyvyan, but like he was an insect crawling up the wall._

_"Ooh. He is a bastard," I agreed._

_Then, proving how much of a bastard he was, Rick said, "Why did you give your son a girl's name?" Vyvyan shoved him to the floor and I kicked him, then stepped over the chair._

_"Now, why don't you come on over here and tell me what you've been doing for the last ten years," I said. I meant it. _

_"OK, Mum," Vyvyan said, taking up his drink. He was smiling; he really wanted to talk to me. Now that I look back on it, this was finally something of the response I wanted. But at the time it seemed ... inadequate. I don't know. And I wanted to torment him a little, again._

_"Not you! Zit-face! Him!" I said, grabbing his friend Mike by the arm. I only meant to talk to him for a couple of minutes, but he was cute, and I did rather fancy him ... and Vyvyan, after waving goodbye in that sort of accepting way, like it didn't really matter that much to him, didn't look at me for the rest of the night, and left without saying good-bye. I didn't know he was leaving until Rick stuck his head back in the door, called me an old bag and said Mike had herpes._

_Oh, I thought about going after him, but I'd lose my job, and besides, he really wasn't all that interested ... he probably figured I'd thrown him out like yesterday's garbage, and not because it gave him a better chance in life. "He's a bright lad, he needs stability to succeed," they said. And I knew they were right. But I also knew that my life would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about the boy. Things were so bad when the social workers and I had that talk that I was relieved when they suggested taking him. Later I was sorry. Later still I wished I'd given him up when he was born. Then I'd wonder how he was doing. Every time I saw a scrappy boy with ginger hair, I wondered if that was Vyvyan._

_After he left the pub, a customer who said he knew him told me he was a medical student. I still don't know if I believe it. I mean, you'd think he'd want me to know! But that probably proves that it was right to give him up, even if it meant I could never have a relationship with him._

_The ring will look good hanging from a chain. The watch ... I'll hold onto it; maybe I'll give it back to him, maybe I'll sell it if I need the money. I probably could find out where Vyvyan's living, but ... maybe it's just as well not to try._

"You all right, Vyvyan?" Rick asked softly.

He shook his head violently. Now he couldn't even comfort himself by saying she didn't love him. Worse, he'd known it all along. That didn't make everything she _did_ right; it might not have been enough for him to forgive her – but he probably would have. Well, he did forgive her. But he couldn't tell her that now. Well, maybe he could. But he couldn't be sure. God knew, but as usual, God didn't make Vyvyan any more certain of anything but the fact that God managed to keep his composure until her place was clean by clamping his jaw tightly shut and not looking at his mates.

In the car on the way back to Rick's, they took a detour through the old haunts around the university. Perhaps deliberately the others brought up memories where Vyvyan looked good at their expense, and he managed to smile. But then they drove past the Kebab and Calculator. For a moment Vyvyan had an overwhelming urge to stop and see if his mum was working – then he caught up to the present again and fell apart.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"No, Chel, there's no reason to come over – no service, no nothing. I'm bringing her ashes back with me, in fact."

"If you're sure about that, Vyvyan – about not coming over there -- "

"I am."

He could hear the splashing and calling of kids in the swimming pool on the other end, so he knew the connection hadn't dropped, and that Chel was just trying to find the right words.

"I'm just a little worried about how you're taking all this—"

"Bloody awfully, thanks for asking," Vyvyan replied acidly. "We had a huge argument, I said ... I said the most awful things to her, about how she was never there for me and I hoped she would burn in Hell, and ... she died five hours later." He gulped. "I didn't even get to think about regretting it before she died –" his voice wavered, and he covered with excessive sarcasm "but hell, now I have the rest of my life to think about it. Isn't that wonderful!"

"It's not as if you knew when she was going to die."

"Chel, she was still my mum. Anyway, she left all these -- these -- "

The odd things was that – by now, anyway, fifteen hours after getting back from his mum's flat, letting his mates read what she'd left, forbidding them to comment or come near him or say anything to him – he would have sworn he was all cried out. But here he was, losing it again.

"I loved her, I don't know why, I just did," he babbled, half-sobbing, disgusted with himself. Chel kept murmuring "It'll be all right, it'll be all right" to him the way she did when the kids scraped their knees or had arguments with their little friends or didn't get the kinds of grades they'd expected or broke up with their puppy loves. Nobody would have guessed from listening to her tone that they hadn't spoken for nearly a year, not since he came home to find her moving out. He angrily told her to stay there, that he would move out, and after that they had only communicated about the kids through their attorneys. But neither one filed for divorce or even a formal separation.

"The worst part is, is, that she loved me, I'm sure of it, but she couldn't show me. And I couldn't show her. I don't know why, I don't know why, would it have been so hard to just say that much?"

"I don't know, Vyvvyan," Chel soothed. "I know she loved you, but she always felt you couldn't accept told me what happened, same time you almost lost your leg – she ran after Harry and tried to stop him ..."

_What the fuck? What am I doing in this alley? Running? From what -- _

_"Where are you, you little bastard?"_

_Oh shit, it's that dream! I must have been more tired than I thought ... wait, this is different. This is the alley between our council flat and the pub from when I was ten years old. That's Harry yelling and running after -- after me. I never could remember what happened ... is this a PTSD flashback, or am I in Hell? Damn, my legs are short -- but I should be able to outrun the sick arsehole, unless -  
_

_Christ, who left that box in the middle of the alley? He's going to catch me for sure now! He'll kill me!_

It was different from the dreams. Here he wasn't the paralyzed observer, he was the protagonist. He felt the loose rocks and cobblestones under his body as he rolled onto his back and kicked up at Harry, big, red, drunk and sweating in a string vest and undershorts. That kind of move worked with bigger boys who thought they could bully him, but it didn't deter Harry and his cricket bat. He heard the bones in his left leg crack before the pain chewed its way up his nerves and blasted into his brain, breaking through his restraint.

_"Mummy! Mummy, help me!"_

_You bloody fool. **Never** ask Mum to help you! Now she's going to come hold you down, maybe take a few swings with the bat herself --  
_

_"You leave my little boy alone, you bastard!" Did she really say that?  
_

_"Shut up, bitch!" Oh shit, she's getting it now -- no, she dodged that one, and that one, too!  
_

_"Run, Vyvyan! Run--" _

_He got her! Mum! I have to stay and help her!_

_You fool. You can't do anything by yourself, and she said run -- _

Vyvyan couldn't put any weight on his left leg, but he dragged himself on the knee of his good leg and both hands around the corner, where a bobby was lazily swinging his truncheon, just out of earshot of the melée in the alley. It seemed to have taken forever to get there, forever to claw his way upright, forever to get the bobby's attention:

"HELP! HELP! OFFICER! HELP! ME MUM'S BEING KILLED!"

The officer strolled forward a few steps, then broke into a dead run, following the thuds and shrieks he could now hear. Vyvyan struggled back around the corner and watched as the bobby struck Harry with his truncheon, knocked him down, put his knee on Harry's neck, cuffed him efficiently, made a call on his radio for an ambulance and then dragged Harry upright, slamming him into the wall. Beyond, his mum lay face-down on the pavement.

"Mum?" Vyvyan called tentatively. _She's dead! No, she's moving ..._

She lifted her head, and he saw her face covered in blood.

"Oh, fuck! Mum!" Vyvyan started to run to his mother, but the first step he tried to take with his broken leg sent him crashing to the ground. His head hit the pavement ...

... Chel's voice cut through the haze of the past.

"He went to prison for twenty years for attempted murder on you both, and she convinced your real father to send you to school –"

"_MY WHAT?"_

"Wasn't Dr Freddie your real father? His last name was Vyvyan, after all, and he had red hair, didn't he? Besides, that's who your mum told me your father was."

And who said God didn't like to fuck around with creation? Who said God didn't pay close attention to individuals? Who said God wasn't a sadist? Today he – or she; at times like this God seemed more like his mum than anyone else -- seemed to have decided to see how much more Vyvyan could take before losing his mind.

"Mum always said she didn't know who my real father was." His voice had dropped to a bewildered murmur.

"What was that, Vyv?"

"Chel, I need to go, I haven't slept since getting here ... I need to get my head back on straight."

"Of course. Vyv ..." Her voice was full of love and concern.

"I know," he whispered back. "I do too."

He sat, eyes closed, until the connection was broken.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Dr Freddie had saved Vyvyan's shattered leg and given direction to his unformed life, but Vyvyan had not attended his funeral. When the kindly paediatric orthopaedic surgeon died (against his will, no doubt), Vyvyan was so crushed he became physically ill. In any event, he wasn't even sure there had been a funeral -- he never heard of it, let alone was asked to attend it. When he started to recover from the sudden loss of his mentor, about a week later, he ran up against a problem he hadn't realized before.

Strangely, while he had even spent some holidays and term breaks with Dr Freddie, fishing or tramping through the Pennines or observing his surgeries, and he had once spent Christmas at his manor house, watched by the disapproving eyes of his wife and the curious eyes of his two daughters, Diana and Clementina, he didn't know Dr Freddie's last name. Everyone called him Dr Freddie. And he didn't learn it after Dr Freddie died. He had a phone number in case he had to initiate contact with Dr Freddie, which he'd always assumed was his home number, but it was disconnected by the time he scraped together enough cash to call from a telephone kiosk. Eventually Vyvyan learned of the bequest Dr Freddie had left him, but the trustee was always careful never to disclose his benefactor's name.

Realizing that he didn't know Dr Freddie's surname had been like a dagger in his heart. He knew the surnames of people he hated -- his mum had even tried to force him to bear the surname of one of her husbands, and Vyvyan had fought that. But he didn't know the surname of a man to whom he owed so much. But that was his sixteen-year-old self -- street smart yet callow, unaware of how easily information can be acquired. It only took a little asking around to discover Dr Freddie's full name and where he was buried -- and why his mum had named him Vyvyan.

He put on a suit and tie, had his shoes shined and bought a floral arrangement -- tasteful but not ostentatious. He rented a car and drove to a small town in Norfolk, where he found the grave in a tiny churchyard, amid groups of fenced-off surnames that smacked of the aristocracy – Cavendish, Hervey, Spencer, Bentnick, Vane-Tempest-Stewart ...

Sir Dr Frederick Hervey George Edward Vyvyan CMG MRCS, a fairly new white marble stone among the gated plot of Vyvyans, with a caduceus carved at the top and supported by cherubs instead of some ancient coat of arms. Vyvyan carefully set the flowers on the grave and stood, eyes tracing the lettering on the headstone, the dates of birth and death. He realized with a shock that today was the anniversary of Dr Freddie's death. He kicked himself mentally for bringing such a small arrangement.

Dr Freddie did have to keep seeing him, of course, regardless of how Vyvyan behaved to him – and there were times that Vyvyan had been incredibly rude to the man, even trying to hit him a few times when something he did hurt. But Dr Freddie had a reputation for winning his young patients over, and he didn't flinch or act shocked when Vyvyan trotted out his expletive-laden vocabulary. He would find himself engaged by the doctor's explanations of what was happening with his leg, what the body did to heal itself, what the doctors and nurses and others were doing to help the process, even why pain was necessary and even a good thing sometimes -- and then he would wonder what this chap wanted, really. Why did he care? When he finally asked, the doctor said, "Because you're a bright young lad and I think you'll understand all this."

Whether the doctor really thought so or was just flattering him, Vyvyan began to act as if he were a bright young lad who could understand all that. Before long, he was devouring old anatomy books that Dr Freddie loaned him and asking hard questions about what he read. Dr Freddie praised him – not too effusively, as if he had run into a chimp that knew its multiplication tables, but as if he were confirming something he suspected all along and were pleased with the fact.

Vyvyan tried to explain to his mum what he had learned, but she just rolled her eyes and said "Oh Vyvyan, honestly, who cares?" So Vyvyan stopped trying to show her what was happening to him – not only was his leg knitting, but his mind was opening to a world beyond the confines of their grim little neighbourhood. One day Dr Freddie casually mentioned something about college, and Vyvyan pelted him with questions. He learned that he had to pass so many of those O-level exams coming up next year to get onto the track to go to college. He had never thought he should try to take the O levels seriously -- everyone said they were so hard. Dr Freddie said he could if he buckled down and studied hard -- he already understood enough to pass an A level in anatomy (OK, Vyvyan knew now that was exaggerated). Vyvyan said he had never been able to concentrate on what he was reading before. Sometimes he was too hungry, sometimes his mum and stepfather were arguing, and sometimes he just couldn't focus. He fell asleep in class. He was absent a lot. ...

Then his mum came in a few days later -- her visits had always been intermittent -- and said he wasn't going to live with her anymore when he got out of the hospital.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"You're going to school. A boarding school. A _prep_ school."

"But I don't want to!" he exclaimed. "It'll be too hard!"

Her lip curled. "Dr Freddie seems to think you can do it. All those medical books you keep pretending to read. You've sure got him fooled, don't you?"

"I read them!"

"Don't you shout at me!"

A nurse came into the ward. "Mrs Warning," she said, "please keep your voice down or we'll have to ask you to leave."

His mum nodded curtly, paced the room a few times, and then said to Vyvyan, in a low voice, "Look, you ungrateful brat, you're getting a chance you don't deserve. Try to at least pass something OK?"

"But where are you going?"

"None of your business!" she snapped. "I'm glad to be getting rid of you, you know that?"

He just looked up at her, not following her mood swings.

"You'll still get beaten," she said harshly, "but at least it'll be other boys, not –"

She got a strange look on her face, kissed him on the forehead and left suddenly.

***

The grass rustled behind him, and he turned to see a tall, slender, ginger-haired woman in black, carrying a larger floral arrangement. She seemed a bit older than Vyvyan; he could see gray roots in her hair, wrinkles on her long, narrow face and a slight stoop in her shoulders, but her bearing, her bone structure and some ... vibes, he guessed, told him she was upper class by birth, by breeding and by natural inclination.

She headed straight for Dr Freddie's grave. Oh, shit, Vyvyan thought.

She laid her wreath against the headstone, crossed herself and said a short prayer under her breath, crossed herself again, and looked up at him. Her eyes were dark blue, like his own.

"I'm Diana," she said, holding out her hand and smiling. "Remember me? I'm Dr Freddie's daughter – the elder one. You're Vyvyan, that boy my dad took such an interest in, aren't you?"

He nodded, cringing at her use of his given name. It seemed so cheeky to go round sporting it now. Why didn't his mum name him Frederick, or George or Edward or even Hervey?

"I hear you're a doctor now," she said, lowering her hand but showing no sign of offense or contempt -- not even to Vyvyan's sharpened eyes. "A good doctor."

"How do you know?" Vyvyan snapped.

"The Internet," she said lightly.

"Oh."

They watched the flowers genuflect to the headstone in a gentle morning breeze.

"Dad was proud of you," she said, "and he'd be prouder now, I'm sure." She looked up. "He had no sons. Well, no legitimate sons, whatever 'legitimate' means nowadays. He wanted to acknowledge you, but Mum wouldn't hear of it."

"You knew?" Vyvyan gasped.

"You didn't?"

"But he never told me, why would he tell ..."

"Nobody told me. I overheard some things my parents said to each other. And you look just like him."

"I only just found out. Mum didn't want me to know."

When he didn't complete the sentence, she murmured her condolences, and he nodded. Why didn't she go away? He just wanted to be alone right now, to process, to redefine himself, not listen to some platitudes from someone who had the privileges he'd been denied.

And suddenly his anger focused on Dr Freddie. Why _didn't_ he acknowledge Vyvyan, or even tell him privately who he was? Did he die thinking he'd done enough to make up for leaving his by-blow in the gutter, with a half-starved body and an emaciated mind, bruised and beaten by people who should have protected him?

The answer didn't come in words, but in numbers: 1930. 1978. The year Dr Freddie was born and the year he died. Somehow, between those two figures, the possibility of a professional man from the upper classes acknowledging an illegitimate child, especially one sired on a working-class girl, could not exist. Vyvyan took a deep breath and pushed his anger away. It wasn't Dr Freddie's fault, not really.

"Well, perhaps this isn't the best time to get acquainted," Diana said, "but here's my card. I inherited Dad's old house. You're welcome to visit any time."

He took the card -- _The Rev Diana Vyvyan-Cavendish_ -- and gave her his own, biting his lower lip and trying to hide his increasing emotional turmoil. It was no good; a tear escaped and he found himself in his half-sister's embrace, shuddering and sobbing for the umpteenth time this week.

"Sorry," he told her when he could, carefully stepping back. "I think I'm cracking up. Everything's happening to me at once." He stifled the urge to tell Diana everything. She was a stranger, even if she was his sister, even if she was a vicar or something; no matter what, he wasn't going to dump everything on her here, now. "I really ought to go."

"Yes, of course. This is a bad time to have so many changes piled on you. But I really would like to see you before you leave. And I am calling you after you get home, you know. I am going to make sure you come back to visit."

He remembered what Dr Freddie said when he was trying to break through Vyvyan's barrier of fear/anger/reserve: "I am coming back every day, you know, so you might as well get used to it."

Vyvyan couldn't come up with any words, but he did find a real smile for her somewhere in his emotional reserves.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Vyvyan stood on the dock feeling much better than he had for at least a year. He had arrived back in California that morning, and almost as soon as he turned his BlackBerry back on at the airport, he got two very welcome voice-mail messages. One was from his daughter, saying that her mom was going to let them come to the little ceremony Vyvyan had planned, even though she and Josh would have to miss a school day for it. Of course, if he had his mum's ceremony in Britain, as Rick had argued she would want, the kids would have had to miss a lot more than just one day - and he was glad things weren't so bad that his wife wouldn't let the kids say goodbye to their grandma because the grandma happened to be his mum.

He called Brit back first and they discussed when she'd arrive at his apartment with Josh, what they should wear, and who else would be there. Then V. broke one of his rules, which was not to discuss Chel with the kids unless they brought her up.

"Is .. is your mum planning to be there?"

"I don't know ... should I ask?"

"No, no ... I'll just plan on her being there and if she isn't, well, she isn't. I don't want you to feel you've got to do something either way about this. We don't want you to be caught between us. This ... problem is your mum's and mine, not yours."

Did she understand? How did you tell your kid to stay out without being rude, or sounding like you were protesting too much? Besides, as far as Vyvyan could see, it _did_ concern her. It _was_ her business. But it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't her job to negotiate a peace between them. Damn, he hated words sometimes. So imprecise.

The second message was from the chief of surgery at the hospital, saying his job with the trauma center was safe and he should call as soon as possible to let her know when he would be back at work. By the time he got that message, she was gone for the day, so he called his AA.

"Well, I guess I'm coming back," he told her.

"Oh, yes," she said. "You missed the drama. A lot of the staff - medical, nonmedical, down to part-time janitors -- signed a petition saying the security here is pathetic, and that if you were fired for defending yourself, they would all quit. Management is finally going to review the matter. That's one of the reasons the chief wants to know when you'll be back so she can schedule a meeting on the subject."

Vyvyan ran his hand over his face. Not only did that make a point they'd all been trying to make for at least two years, it also put paid to the idea that the staff was so afraid of him they wanted him to leave. The chief of surgery was a good physician and a good person, but she hadn't been working overnights for far too long. She still pictured the overnight shift as it was fifteen years ago. He told his AA to let the chief know he would call her in the morning, around 10 or 11

"Any other news?"

"Mr Macintosh was killed in a brawl in the county jail," she said cheerfully.

"I hardly consider that good news," V said very sharply.

"Of course not," she said evenly. "I simply thought you should know."

He looked at his watch. Everyone else was there, but no Chel. He sighed. 11:30 p.m. was much too late to blame being late on traffic. If they were going to get where they were going by midnight, they needed to leave now. He turned to the captain of the boat he had hired and said, "I think we'd better go." He strolled up the gangplank --

"Vyvyan! Vyvyan! Wait!" called a voice, and he turned and saw a slight figure hurrying toward them.

"All right, wait," he told the captain, who helped Chel onto the gangplank. Vyvyan helped her off the plank into the boat, and her dark eyes met his, but he couldn't read their expression. He let her make her way to the children and turned to stand near the entrance to the raised bow.

The trip from Pier 24 was majestically slow, as much for the sake of ceremony as for safety in the dark. They circled Alcatraz Island, where Vyvyan had thought about spreading his mum's ashes before deciding against it, and turned west out toward sea. It sailed through the Golden Gate, under the beautiful bridge, and beyond, just out of earshot of the midnight traffic flow; the skipper cut the motor and dropped the anchor. Only then did Vyvyan turn to face the others aboard.

In the moonlight, he eyed the other passengers: Brittani, his daughter, ginger hair tied back in a serviceable ponytail; Josh, his son, looking both worried and fierce and somewhat Asian despite his red hair and freckles; Chel standing between them, her short hair blowing in the breeze and her face still unreadable; Diana in her vestments; his other half-sister, Clementina, another redhead, looking a little out of place; Rick, trying not to be seasick; Neil, hunched over and chewing on a knuckle; Mike, standing straight, hands behind his back. His eyes rested on a graceful dark shape on the deck. He picked it up – smooth, hard, glossy, unyielding – and turned to Diana.

"I guess we can start now," he said. Diana stepped to the center of the deck.

"Let us pray," she began.

Vyvyan didn't hear her prayer, or any of the remarks she made afterward. He was thinking: _I know you didn't want a service. Well, too bad. This is for us, not for you. _

He went over the remarks he'd prepared on the flight over from London. He didn't like what he'd outlined. Total bollocks. This crowd didn't need to hear about grabbing life with both hands and drinking the cream from the top of the bottle and all that bollocks, which is what people usually said about her.

"Dad?" said Josh.

"Oh, is it my turn?" he asked softly. So he'd decided he wasn't going to say what he'd prepared. What would he say, then?

He picked up the heavy urn with his mum's ashes inside and climbed onto the bow. For a moment he thought about just disposing of them without saying anything at all. But as he considered that, he began talking to her.

"Well, Mum, here we are. I finally got you to come to America. See what you missed?"

From here he could see the lights of San Francisco's western side, which he seldom saw, and he paused just to take it all in.

"I think you would have liked San Francisco. I certainly think you would have liked the weather better than London – always complaining about the bloody rain you were."

He paused, frowning. Now what? He turned to look over the bow out to sea. "Mum, I found the things you'd written for me ... and I found things you didn't want anyone else to see. I only skimmed those, your journals. I haven't even told anyone about them yet. I think you meant to burn them. I may well do that, or I may not. But I'm going to read them all first. Every last word.

"I know now ... I know you had a hard life, a difficult life. You were ... so bright, so ambitious, and you couldn't do anything about it. At fifteen you were working for a new doctor, filing things and stuff, trying to make a little extra money for your family, and you wanted to be a nurse. One thing led to another, and that led to me when you were only sixteen.

"I'm not going to lie, Mum. The first ten years of my life were horrible. I won't go into all that, but you know what happened. Some of it you did directly. Some of it you allowed. But some of it you tried to stop, even though it could have cost you your life.

"Then you gave me up. Then I ran into you by accident and you stole everything of value you could from me. Every conversation turned into an argument. Even our last one."

His voice caught; when he continued, it was shaking and hoarse. "I wish it had been different, Mum. I really do. Because I loved you, and you loved me, although you had a funny way of showing it sometimes.

"When you gave me up, that showed it. You could have told my, my, my father, that you were going to keep me. That would have been the easy thing to do. Easy on your ego, anyway. It's hard to raise a kid, but it's harder to know you failed – or did you? Pushing him out of the nest a little early because you knew he'd have a better chance?

"I don't know, mum, I can't imagine walking away from my kids. I hated you for it. Now I see you had a crap hand and you played it well, maybe even brilliantly, at least for my sake. What would I have been had you kept me? In prison, probably, or dead, or passing poverty, ignorance and abuse on to another generation.

"I never figured it out until it was too late to thank you, to really start again with our relationship. But I can ... forgive you, can't I? For what you did to me knowingly, and unknowingly ... or what I thought you did ... and hope you forgive me, wherever you are, if you can."

He swallowed. "And ... I can start over with other relationships. I can do better. I don't know how, but ... I'll find out. It'll never replace what we should have had, Mum, but ..."

He heard, or imagined, her voice as clearly as if she were standing behind him. _Oh Vyvyan, don't talk such nonsense. Your brain's overcooked. Just get it over with already._

Smiling wryly, he hefted the sealed metal urn, designed to sink to the bottom of a given body of water and stay there, onto the rail. "Well, anyway, Mum. Over you go."

It splashed into the water, tilted, then went straight down without a trace. That was what it was supposed to do so it would embed itself in the bottom – but he wished it hadn't gone so quickly.

He clambered back to the main deck. Everyone looked like they'd shed a few tears, but Chel was shaking and trying to hold back. He held his arms out to her and then he was holding her tight, stroking her dark hair. He was glad she was sobbing so loudly, so he could weep himself without being too obvious about it.

###


End file.
